


Little Does My Lady Dream

by openmouthwideeye



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-10-31
Packaged: 2017-12-31 02:41:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openmouthwideeye/pseuds/openmouthwideeye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Great men weave lives into tapestries, making powerful pictures from forgotten bits of straw and string. This thread is worth her weight in gold.</p>
<p>
  <i>For the Monsters, Maidens, and Creatures in Between Halloween challenge. Based loosely on the fairytale "Rumpelstilskin."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Does My Lady Dream

**Author's Note:**

> This was my initial response to the Rumpelstiltskin prompt. It is, quite obviously, a beast, so I veered off halfway through to write "Nothing Gold Can Stay." This one is a bit more in my typical style, but I thoroughly enjoyed the process of writing both. Happy fairytales!
> 
> Thanks to Isy for beta-ing this for me!
> 
> "Merrily the feast I'll make.  
> Today I'll brew, tomorrow bake;  
> Merrily I'll dance and sing,  
> For next day will a stranger bring.  
> Little does my lady dream  
> Rumpelstiltskin is my name.  
> Rumpelstiltskin is my name!"

 

Brienne sat in an alcove two corridors beyond her father's solar, doing her best to blend into the tapestries. She could not hear his unwitting misdirection, but she sank deeper into the recess all the same.

A pinched rebuke snapped from memory, but her septa was in the solar bearing witness to Brienne’s character. Brienne imagined Septa Roelle spoke carefully, painting her charge’s vast flaws into a tapestry of obfuscations woven of the finest thread. “Gold of hair.” Brienne had heard the words, at once honest and the most impure falsehood. “Fair of skin.” The deception felt sour, sinking heavy in her belly.

_What happens when he sees me?_ She could not help but wonder. _I cannot hide my face._

But the queen’s father cared little for golden beauty and ivory skin. He stored treasure enough beneath Casterly Rock, golden heirs and golden ore, hard and bitter and shining in his coffers. What he sought from her father was something else entirely: politics and power; a boot buried on Stormland shores; a subtle maneuver in the game of thrones.

Footsteps echoed down the hall. For a moment Brienne feared it was her father bearing news of her betrothal, or perhaps Lord Lannister seeking to study the Evenstar’s wares for himself. She stiffened, clumsily straightening her unfamiliar skirts. But the footfalls were too light, lacking in purpose. The man that rounded the corridor wore Lannister colors, but he stood no taller than Brienne had at the age of seven.

She pressed into her benched alcove, wishing she were a child again, wishing she could duck and disappear. When the little man caught sight of her her face grew dense and taut, a cooling hunk of metal neglected by the smith for more profitable ventures.

“My lady,” greeted the youngest Lannister, the one they called ‘Imp.’ He raised his cup of wine in salutation. “You are rather taller than expected.”

She could think of nothing but to remark upon his own height, and so she remained silent.

“And less deft of tongue,” he observed.

Her neck jerked with terse affront, but she loosened the uncompromising muscles with the hard knowledge that he did not speak falsely. He could have made less tactful observations, and more crudely.

Her eyes caught gold-trimmed sails bobbing on heavy ships in the distant harbor. She allowed them to steal her attention, hoping he might lose interest in prodding the beast and retire to his guest chambers.

“My father intends you for a Lannister bannerman,” the Imp told her, deftly hopping onto the pillow beside her without upsetting his wine. “An ill-favored one.” He eyed her poorly fitted bodice, wrinkling his nose like a child begrudging his maester a lesson. His grimace turned in upon himself, as rueful as it was bitter. “I admit myself shocked he failed to bestow the honor upon his dear, youngest son.”

Brienne knew she should reply graciously, perhaps pull some courtly witticism from smiling lips, but she could not. Pretty phrases came slowly in the best of times, and all but fled in the face of difficult truths.

“Why would you have me, my lord, when you possess more than my weight in gold?” She intended it as a jape, but the words fell in a harsh rasp and lay quivering on the cold stone floor.

_Foolish girl_. Censure came in her septa’s sharp tones. _Wallow and weep as you may; your circumstance will change as quickly as your reflection in a looking glass._

The dwarf’s misshapen lips twitched. Pity pooled in the furrowed skin between his brows.

“I might,” he ruminated, swilling his wine, “were you not meant for another.” The hollow of his cup flashed red and gold like the lion on his father’s cloak, the etching on his brother’s armor. He took a sip and eyed her above the rim. “Perhaps I might swindle my father by turning straw to gold.”

A frown crept up her face.

“And make sport of me?” she asked, voice stiff and flat as she glanced past a fringe of flaxen hair.

She eyed the space between them as if his tongue might snap free of the silence and rake her; a ferocious, gilded lion where he was not. But it seemed his pity and his mocking had shifted to charity, perhaps borne of their mutual abnormality.

“You are well versed in court intrigues?” he asked. He did not pause for a response. “My father cannot catch you a husband if you’re duller than straw. And as Tarth is more mooring dock than island, I’m not likely to find a better game. It wouldn’t do for my mind to cloud with your Essosi spices.” He sniffed his wine and mused, “Though I would not refuse some Myrish firewine.”

She could not very well deny the offer, no matter how she distrusted him. Even if her father and Lord Tywin reached an accord, her septa had long despaired of turning her into a proper lady. Brienne had no head for pleasantries and no skill outside the practice yard.

She eyed him warily. “What would you seek in return? Lannisters do not forgive debts.”

He chuckled, sliding from the cushions and landing on careful feet. “Oh, your firstborn should do nicely. A stunted lion like myself can hardly be expected to produce a cub of my own.” 

Brienne did not appreciate the jape, but the Imp was growing impatient, so she followed him down the hall with cautious steps.

 

* * *

 

When Brienne was presented before Tywin Lannister, the Lord of Casterly Rock, Warden of the West, and former Hand of Mad King Aerys, she was garbed in a rose gown that her seamstress had sewn too short. At the bequest of Lord Tywin, her father waited without until the final terms could be agreed upon. In his absence she felt more exposed than the poorly cut silk warranted.

“ _This_ is your blushing flower? The wench is better suited to a plow than to embroidering pillows.”

Brienne could not stop her eyes from flicking angrily to the man who would insult her in her father’s hall. She did not find some uncouth sworn sword as expected, but Lord Tywin’s eldest son and heir.

She blinked in surprise. A flush curled around her ears, blessedly spreading no further. The tales did not lie about his beauty. He was gold etched in crimson, carved by some sculptor’s hand. Brienne’s footsteps faltered.

_Is this performance not humiliation enough?_ she despaired in the same fierce thought as: _Who is he to judge me unworthy?_

The Kingslayer had no equal, it was said, as sure with a sword as a lion with its claws.

_And as savage, too._

He had slain the king and idled over his body, dripping blood and derision down the blades of the Iron Throne. King Robert had taken the council of Lord Eddard Stark, cursing the Young Lion with clemency and dismissing him from the ancient brotherhood of the Kingsguard. Casterly Rock had welcomed its heir stripped of honor, white cloak stained with the color of his House.

It did not surprise Brienne that he spoke so brazenly, but her teeth gnashed all the same.

Lord Tywin said nothing, but his lips tightened with carefully controlled disdain as she curtsied clumsily before him, praying her ineptness concealed her irritation. Her eyes sought the empty chair to his left, but his other son had no place there. She found the Imp lingering by the door, a spectator to the spectacle unraveling before the low dais.

Brienne’s eyes caught on the worn flagstones, decorated by a thousand scrapes of the blunted blade she’d cherished as a child.

The Lord of Casterly Rock gestured sharply. “Bring the boy.”

‘The boy’ was a knight several years her senior, shorter than her with a flaming beard framing a fixed jeer. He held a single, red rose in a loose grip, palm in danger of catching its thorns.

_Ser Ronnet Connington_ , she remembered.

The Imp had told her to accept his offer with sweet sounds and an unflinching expression. Brienne settled her face as she had practiced. A slight turn of the lips, far from the broad smile no man wished to see. Composed eyes, so that her slow speech might seem calculated, coy.

“S-ser,” she stuttered.

She swallowed dryly, pulling her lips apart to force courtesies past the defense of her large front teeth. But the knight spoke before she could continue, and Brienne was left gaping dumbly.

“Brienne the Beauty.” He relished the words, smile caught between a smirk and an incredulous laugh. “I would not have supposed you a maid of six and ten. You do not resemble a girl so much as a beast chewing cud.”

Brienne’s open mouth wavered to defend her honor—to seal her lips against the taunt—but her jaw seemed set in stone. Her features always betrayed her.

“Your sons will be large and sturdy,” Lord Tywin interjected brusquely. “Her beauty is of no consequence.”

She flinched, trying to recall the defenses the Imp had taught her, but her thoughts had turned to waves upon the shore, crashing and chaotic, sea indistinguishable from swirls of sand and silt.

The dwarf came to her defense with a quickness the gods had denied her. “My lady has promised to name her firstborn for me,” he called from his corner, hopping idly from his stool to approach the proceedings. When he grew close enough to crane his neck at her, he gestured Brienne’s broad and ugly face. “The child will have features near as monstrous as mine, so your heir will bear the name well. I should like to hear it taunted toward clouds instead of cobblestone.”

The knight’s face twisted at the little man, but he turned his scowl upon Brienne. A noise escaped her, objection and incense and anguish threaded together and tossed at the lords’ feet. She wished it back, wished for a blade to smash the sound to pieces, but four sets of eyes were upon her and she could not move under the weight of them.

The fear instilled by the Imp’s father dissipated, ground to flour beneath Ser Ronnet’s red-framed grimace.

“I would not wed you for all the gold in Casterly Rock,” he told Brienne plainly. He looked to Lord Tywin Lannister more brashly than any landed knight should have dared. “Dress a sow in silk,” he laughed, ignorant to the tightening of his lord’s gray-green eyes, “and she lows all the same.”

Heat descended as though the sun had burned through the ceiling, smothering Brienne beneath her silks. Tears pricked her eyes, but she clenched her teeth and trapped them between her lashes.

“You are speaking to a lady, not some slattern at a roadside inn.”

Brienne’s were not the only eyes that sought the Kingslayer’s gaze, but they were the ones that held it. He watched her as he rebuked the knight, his tone cool like the whisper of scabbard and steel.

“Keep a civil tongue, ser, or you’ll find it in a pool on the floor.”

Ser Ronnet shifted, trying not to show his unease.

“A gift for the lady,” he called, bowing first to the golden knight, then to the lusterless lady, as though this were some mummer’s farce and his part had ended. “You will have no more of me,” he warned, tossing his rose at her feet.

The flower seemed to wither as the knight marched away, bleeding crimson until it matched the straw of her hair.

With a sharp glance at the Imp, Lord Tywin stood and strode from the hall, paying Brienne no heed. His sons gathered themselves and followed their father, sun-scattered shadows of the proud, unshakable lion who had little use for the daughter of Evenfall Hall.

She sunk gracelessly to the floor, quelling unwelcome tears until her father entered and gathered her into his arms. Then moisture leaked from her eyes, forsaken by the stifled sobs that she’d long outgrown.

She wept soundlessly that night and greeted the golden morning as one who could not escape it. Brienne ate sparingly in her father’s empty solar, dreading the hall and the guests who had invaded its worn trestle tables.

A maidservant bustled around her, tidying as the girl broke her fast. The door of the solar opened so abruptly that the woman squeaked, concealing the sound of Brienne’s cup hitting the edge of the table and tinkering to pieces on the sun-soaked carpet.

“Wench,” the Kingslayer greeted her. She suspected his discourtesy was deliberate. “My brother said I might find you here.” The Imp had found her after the evening feast, but he could not prevail upon her to play the daughter of Evenfall as courtesy dictated.

The servant scurried from the room and the knight entered fully, armored in gold plate as if for battle. There were boles of blue fabric looped across his arm.

_Silk_ , she noted. Her mouth formed a hard line without her leave. She shielded her eyes with her lashes, hoping to offset the impudence.

“Your seamstress has a poor eye, wench.” He spoke as though the conversation mattered little, but the expensive fabric was neatly folded, held carefully opposite his jeweled scabbard. “It does my father no favors if your gown is less comely than your features. Blue would suit you better.”

Startled, Brienne abandoned the pretense of meekness and met his eyes. He paused for half a heartbeat, his green gaze deepening as if reappraising an opponent he had disregarded.

The Kingslayer regained his focus, dropping armfuls of Braavosi silk across the half-cleared table. “This is more fabric than even you might need,” he remarked carelessly. “See that your seamstress hides those thick ankles before my father uncovers another knight errant.”

His eye snared on the broken porcelain catching warm, yellow sunlight on the floor. His lips twitched and his green eyes sparked, reflecting gold from the pieces at her feet.

“Do not attempt to embroider the bodice yourself,” he said, as if she would try such a thing. “Your hands were not made for needles."

He turned, disappearing in a flash of golden armor to leave Brienne bewildered, fingering the slick fabric with thick, clumsy hands.

 

* * *

 

It was a full, maid’s moon when the Evenstar came to his daughter, clutching her large hands close to reveal that Lord Tywin had found a knight who would provide Tarth with an heir.

“A hedge knight.” Her father hid his displeasure well, but it escaped in the wrinkled sand dusting his jaw. “Casterly Rock will reward the union well, and Tarth will gain a powerful ally to the west.”

She wished to protest, but tears and demands both failed her; and so she nodded, resolute against what she could not change.

The Imp met her in the courtyard. Beneath the balmy summer moon he attempted to make her worthy of even the courts of King’s Landing.

“My lady, your hair is straw and your skin like coarse flour,” he said when his instruction was complete. “But once you are wed, you will have more gold than you could desire.”

“I desire none.”

He cocked his head, eyes inscrutable as clouds darkened the pale moon.

The next morning she met her betrothed.

The blue of Tarth’s quarters suited her complexion better than the rose. The Kingslayer gave her a perfunctory nod as she entered. Though she had spent many weeks planning to thank him for the silk, the moment would not come. She flushed, feeling foolish in the pretty dress he had provisioned her, waiting for a nameless knight to find her wanting.

But he did not.

“My lady,” greeted Ser Hyle Hunt, sweeping up her freckled hand and bowing to kiss it. “You should reward your septa well. I’ve never seen a fabric so closely match a woman’s eyes.”

She had spent long nights with the dwarf preparing herself for poorly veiled derision and politic. Brienne had no answer for kindness, mock or elsewise.

“I– that– The Kingsla– ” The word tapered to silence. The embroidery edging her sleeve drew Brienne as rough-hewn thread to the spinner’s wheel. She cleared her throat, fingering the fabric beneath her hand. “You’ll have to thank Ser Jaime for the gown,” she finally muttered.

Hyle’s hand tightened on her own, and she looked up at him with reddening cheeks. The Imp watched her from the corner, brows raised in a language she half understood.

“I had nothing proper, so he commissioned the seamstress,” she explained. The words felt strange leaving her mouth, like sawdust baked into good bread.

“The Lannisters have no lack of riches,” Ser Hyle agreed amiably. “I’m sure the Kingslayer remembers which court fashions the queen favors.”

“My son has not seen his sister since her wedding to King Robert,” Lord Tywin said flatly, scraping past _‘King Robert’_ as though torn between curses and forbearance. “We are here for your betrothal. Do you find her satisfactory?” His tone suggested he cared little for the knight’s opinion.

The dark haired man looked curiously at the other man. Brienne had thought his face honest, but for a breath his expression was canny.

“I shall treasure her as King Robert treasures the good Queen Cersei,” he swore, darting a grin at the Imp as though they shared a secret. Ser Jaime glanced at the knight, his eyes as sharp as his blade.

“Then let it be finished. Summon the Evenstar,” ordered the Lord of Casterly Rock, approaching the writing desk he’d positioned beside the dais. Brienne had been surprised at his faith, but now it seemed no great shock. Hyle Hunt knew better than Connington how this marriage would improve his station. It was Lannister gold he was after, not her.

“Our union need not frighten you, my Maid of Tarth,” he assured, mistaking her silence for foreboding. “I can please a woman as well as any man, and better than most.” His grin was too charming for a leer, but it discomfited Brienne all the same.

The dwarf wandered near as his father uncorked the inkwell. He watched the proceedings almost absently, but he spoke to her dark haired suitor with deliberate detachment. “I hope you do not mind sharing your marriage bed.”

Brienne started, stomach constricting. Her fingers clenched, itching for the weight of something solid and practical.

The man who would wed her turned a mistrustful eye on the dwarf. Ser Hyle’s voice landed with counterfeit buoyancy. “Sharing a bed is the fun of the bedding. She will not need her own until we’ve a brood for her to mind.”

The _scratch, scratch, scratch_ of Lord Tywin’s signature felt ominous as the halfman refocused on the knight. Ser Jaime edged from his post to circle the three of them slowly, a great cat guarding its pride. His handsome smile was unconcerned, but his hand rested upon his hilt with casual, deadly grace.

“Your maid has sworn to bear me her first child.”

The quill ceased moving. The lack of sound was like the crack of a whip in the cavernous hall.

“As you wish to father bastards to rival our king, it cannot concern you.” The little man grinned winningly at Hunt. “But I would hate for you to take offense.”

Brienne wondered dimly if some illness had taken her, descending her into nightmare and horror.

“Then I shall have her before the bedding, since she cares so little for her virtue.” Hunt shrugged.

“You will _not_ ,” Brienne countered hotly, before her septa’s teachings could overtake her.

Hunt was beginning to look miffed. “If you would lie with that misshapen – “

Steel rasped behind him and the man thought better of his words. Brienne watched Ser Jaime flex his grip, for all intents an idle threat, so deadly that it stole her breath. She could not help but admire the way the blade looked a part of him, from the golden point to the gorget guarding his throat.

“This is a political match,” Lord Tywin declared. Even his heir stood less tall at the sound. His cold gaze fell upon his youngest. “You will not treat it like one of your whorehouses.”

The dwarf readied his rebuttal, but before he could speak flickers of blue flashed a broken design across the scuffed stone floor. Brienne watched the azure light spin into the golden reflection of Ser Jaime’s armor, knowing that her father would not suffer Ser Hyle’s disrespect kindly.

The lapis-inlaid doors closed heavily behind the Lord of Evenfall Hall; sunlight flooded the windows, illuminating his approach. Only Lord Tywin paid no mind to the long, purposeful strides he took to meet them.

“The hour grows late,” her father noted, looking at Lord Tywin when he could not catch his daughter’s eye. “Have I cause to worry?”

“My son has ill-timing and a love of mummer’s farces,” dismissed the Warden of the West shortly. “If we may return to important matters? We have tarried on Tarth longer than is meet.”

Brienne held her shoulders in a rigid line, angry and hopeless and thoroughly shamed.

“Come, my maiden fair.” Ser Hyle smiled, glancing at the Imp. “No need to take offense at a quip that exceeded its welcome.”

She wished to tell him that he had exceeded his welcome, as had the Imp, and nearly did. But her father was watching, concerned and increasingly circumspect. Lord Tywin had paused to observe the proceedings, and she knew it would not end well should her father object to Ser Hyle.

“As you say, ser,” she muttered stiffly.

Ser Jaime followed her restless eyes, perturbed, as though he wished to puzzle out her thoughts through each shift of blue. She stood taller, unsettled by his focus, made curious by the green and gold espousal even his brother’s eyes lacked.

“The dwarf will learn that he is lacking,” Ser Hyle murmured to her in an undertone, watching Lord Twyin resettle at the desk, “if he thinks to have you.”

“He will not,” she snapped. The sounds clashed like two swords meeting, dancing along the walls and twisting back to her from the ceiling.

His good humor melted into a sour look. Her words were too loud, too late, too easily misconstrued. Helpless fury stuffed her mouth with straw.

“You have much experience with men?” he asked her blithely, lip curling as he eyed the dwarf. “I doubt it, if you think a perverse lion runt might bring you pleasure.”

A snapping quill was not often heard above intent voices, but in Tywin Lannister’s hand it shredded the knight’s mockery. He rose from his desk slowly, approaching the hedge knight with a face carved from crag. His hands locked behind his back, and he examined the dark haired man as one might eye a rodent rooting through the underbrush.

“A stunted lion stands more regally than any lesser beast of Westeros.” His words struck the knight, soft and sharp, flint on fool’s gold. “What gives a hedge knight the right to scrabble beneath our feet?”

The Lord of Casterly Rock ripped the marriage contract in two. The gesture might have been careless were it not so precise.

“Out,” he ordered, and Brienne’s second prospect scurried from the room without a second thought.

Lord Selwyn rose stiffly, barely suppressing his displeasure. His gaze met Brienne’s as Lord Tywin turned a hard eye on his youngest son.

“You will wed the girl, since you seem so taken with her.”

The Imp’s eyes darkened, disbelief rippling through the satisfaction that had simmered as Hunt fled. “Surely you must be joking.”

“It is not for you to question me.” His father spoke with finality, returning to the writing desk to draft a new agreement.

“Such an arrangement requires my sanction,” Lord Selwyn tried to interject, but the dwarf had eyes only for his father, and his father eyes only for his parchment.

“Is your son worth a minor trade port in the Narrow Sea?” The little man was indignant.

His father’s reply was detached. Brienne heard a lifetime of unspoken trials pass between them. “We need a lesser allegiance to the east. And you have shamed me with your whores long enough.”  

Silence descended like a noose, blocking air and sunlight and strength of will. The Imp’s mouth turned bitter, and Brienne knew he would argue no more.

Ser Jaime shifted to one side. She clutched the clinking of his armor, held it jealously to her heart.

“No.” The word was the barest whisper, skittering through the air like a leaf ripped free of an autumn tree, scraping past cobblestones and courtyards and keeps. Three lions shifted beneath their coats, stalking her with gazes proud and unsatisfied. The golden cat of their sigil shone no brighter than the sunburst of her own. “I am not a bundle of thatch to be shoved onto your roof and forgotten. I will wed no man who does not earn my respect.”

Her heart thundered unevenly in her chest as if to counter the steadiness of her speech. Her father came to stand beside her, watching the other men quietly.

“And how might one gain your respect?” Lord Tywin spoke indifferently, humoring a foolish girl who had no bearing on the day’s outcome. Brienne had long since learned to scoop away courtesy and reveal the wriggling, hard-shelled creatures curled beneath the sand.

“He must outfight me.” The words came easily; they had lingered unnoticed on her tongue since the betrothals had begun a fortnight past.

The halfman rankled. Brienne remembered his support enough to regret that he had taken offense. She had not meant it unkindly.

“Do you wield a needle well?” Lord Tywin raised a brow, and though it seemed a mockery, no hint of amusement touched his face. “You wish to prick my son before he pricks you?”

Ser Hyle’s ribald suggestions echoed back in the brusque dismissal.

“He will not succeed,” Brienne assured, clenching her fists so she would not wipe sweaty palms on the silk of her skirts. She saw no reason to give him an advantage by revealing her discomfort.

The proud man stood, patience worn thin. “Your opinion holds no sway on these proceedings.”

“No man can pass a sentence without a proper trial.” Her father spoke with the voice of the Evenstar: soothing as Tarth’s undulating seas, immutable as its white cliffs, inescapable as the mud beneath its falls.

Brienne would have clung to him in gratitude if she could escape scrutiny for even a breath.

“A trial by battle?” Ser Jaime asked. “For a _betrothal_?”

His father’s eyes could have slashed any armor. For a moment Brienne thought he might turn on his heel and sail away, leaving behind disquieting strains of a haunting, deadly tune. But summer in Tarth meant gold and sunshine, not gray misting rain.

“Very well. Jaime, draw your sword. Your brother’s bride must learn her place.”

Ser Jaime reflected all the golden grace she would forever lack, from his gleaming plate to the tips of his lustrous yellow hair. His gilded blade did not flash free.

“Surely you cannot mean to– “ He broke off under his father’s stare, but he could not suppress his frustrated, nearly bewildered gaze from seeking the towering maiden his father commanded him to cross.

Brienne filled the silence before it could cow her. “I will accept no cloak but from _the man_ who– “ Her eyes flashed at the man they called Kingslayer, but when she pulled them to Lord Tywin his gaze hacked away her courage and she faltered.

“My son has the right to a champion. It was you who invoked the gods; let them determine your worth.”

“My daughter will be armored,” Lord Selwyn insisted before the Lannisters could decide otherwise.

“Then arm her,” Lord Lannister clipped. “So we can end this farce.”

Brienne left before he ground her will to dust beneath that implacable stare. Her father followed, hands clasping her shoulders the moment the great doors closed.

“Brienne.” Tenderness and censure twined his entreaty into a tapestry. “My daughter.” His hand caught the fringe of hair at her nape; he smoothed it from her neck with his thumb.

The dwarf was a good match, she knew. Being wed to a Lannister, even a lesser son, was more than someone of her standing might have hoped. And he had been obliging, far more than she had come to expect, despite his callous words before the Great Lion of Casterly Rock.

“Forgive me,” she whispered.

Her father shook his head, indecision in his eyes but not in his bearing.

He said nothing. She suspected he had no more words than she. He helped her into her blue-plate armor, the frown that often trailed her to the yard replaced with a grim, bracing sturdiness that reminded her of armory walls. When she was fully armored he hefted the simple, heavy sword of the Evenstar that she had so often admired.

“This may change nothing.” He placed the hilt in her hand and she clasped it firmly. The weight of it made her feel less frayed. “Or perhaps he will respect you for it.”

She nodded, though she did not believe it.

The hall was silent as stone when they returned. The Imp and his father were tiered upon the dais like a King and his Hand, and Brienne was glad for the helm to hide her blanch.

Lord Tywin steepled his hands, a command and a dismissal.

The broadsword felt untried in her palm as she approached Ser Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer, the Golden Lion heralded throughout the realm for swordsmanship and valor. She wished desperately for her mace, but it was beyond her to argue so small a point.

“The blue knight, is it?”

She scowled beneath her mask, stepping back to draw her weapon. The familiar motion steadied her as she fell into a fighter’s stance. She could feel the tutelage of her master-at-arms fortifying her wrist and elbow and shoulder.

Amusement twitched Ser Jaime’s lips as he donned his helm.

“When I said blue might suit you, I imagined less plate.” His words were unwitting admiration and muffled mockery, honing her pride and insecurity both.

Oddly, it was the dwarf’s lesson ringing in the echo of his brother’s drawn blade. “Give them a show,” he had said, “and they will forget most any slight.”

Brienne attacked. It did her no favors, but she could not wait for the bold knight’s leisure. The Lannisters’ eyes felt pointed as claws, scraping along her armor and catching in the vulnerability of each seam.

Ser Jaime met her blade with a lazy swipe that quickly stuttered; he scarcely recovered from the force of her blow. His steel slid free and the hollow rasp of their blades sent a coarse thrill beneath the etched sigil on her breastplate. The golden sword swung high, arcing towards her with swift surety that Brienne evaded on instinct. Her blade deflected his as she twisted away, dancing backwards to watch his approach.

A fire kindled behind the slit of his helm, and she knew the furious attack that would follow.

He was better than she, laughably so. His dance was fluid, relentless. Ser Goodwin had deemed her good, better than half the lads he’d knighted. Beside Ser Jaime’s gleaming sword she felt an upstart squire, each swing imprecise and slow. Brienne met his forms half a step too late, evaded each strike through sheer willpower. There was no hope of gaining the advantage. Her only chance was to draw out the fight, but she knew her likelihood of success was grim. She could barely connect her blade with each crash of his.

He hit her with a bone jarring thrust and she parried, throwing her weight into her blade to balance her lesser skill. Ser Jaime’s boots moved expertly, trapping her ankles with his strong calves, and for a moment their breastplates met with a harsh scrape that reverberated through her teeth, lingering metallic on her tongue. Their blades were between them, so she planted her feet as he tried to roust her, knowing him disadvantaged in height and breadth.

“My brother will be disappointed.” She could hear his breathless laughter echoing inside his helm. “You are to be his wife, yet here I am enjoying these close quarters.”

He cut low, glancing off the armor at her hip. She shoved him so hard he stumbled. His eyes flicked infinite seas of gold-scattered green as he caught his balance.

“You are an enviable partner,” he murmured, cutting left so quickly it scraped sparks across her ribs, leaving gouges in the blue lacquer. His bald-faced satisfaction hit her harder than any blow, sending a throb of petrified anger to the heart of her.  

“I will not be his wife.” She forced the words through gritted teeth, circling slowly as she tried to map a strategy for survival.

Sunlight glinted through the wide slot of his helm, painting a golden sheen onto his smooth brow. Everything about Ser Jaime Lannister gleamed as gold; surely as Brienne was as dull as straw.

“You cannot think to _win_?”

His incredulity gave rise to the taut force behind her shoulder. She burrowed it in the dip of his own, spinning him about. Her blade was already aloft as she ripped their plate apart, but the overlay of his breastplate caught the metal of her brassart and she stumbled.

Her blade dipped, but Brienne recovered faster than he. Jaime squinted into the blinding afternoon sun, betrayed by the golden gleam he’d been born to brandish. She caught him with two quick blows, elbow and wrist, and he cursed as his sword clattered to the floor.

“Yield,” she demanded, still moving, quelling the exultation that welled in every fiber of her being. The rush of the fight was inked in the thrum of her veins, but she knew he would not lose so quietly.

He did not. He lunged for his weapon, twisting across the flagstones and rolling up onto his knees. Brienne furrowed her lip with her teeth, tracing hard patterns as his point caressed rents in the stone, scars she’d carved through stolen years of practice. His blade rose like a snapping adder, more precise than her own.

“You may find this marriage agreeable after all.” He glanced at the window, wary and appraising. Satisfaction rose in Brienne when he paused for breath every few words. He saw, and the fan of his lashes spread across his cheek as his eyes narrowed. “You are not so slow as Ser Ronnet supposed.”

The words put a fury in her that would not slacken. She could tell he was pleased by the glimmer of gold beneath his helm, but she could no more stop her furious attack than she could calm the raging seas. He sprung to meet her. For an endless span their duel was pure brutality, bodies and force with no hint of dignity. Brienne felt sweat start to pour, stinging her eyes as she fought her fate with everything within her.

And then they were sprawled across the flagstones, his blade at her throat and hers digging into the gap above his culet. He had trapped her with knees and elbow; though she struggled, she could not move him. Brienne settled angrily, huffing her displeasure and despair. His blade moved imperceptibly with her breaths, flush against the soft skin of her throat.

“Yield.” He revived her insistence mockingly, something like disquiet nestled in his victory. Behind them his father reaffirmed his preeminence, but Jaime did not waver. He balanced his weight on her hips, reaching up to tug her helm free. Her sweaty straw hair spilled upon the floor and she looked up at him, lips stubbornly sealed. “Yield,” he whispered harshly.

But she could not.

Tywin Lannister was moving toward the parchments, and neither his son nor her father hesitated. She heard the Imp’s voice, if not his words, murmuring with her father somewhere distant.

_I gave him no easy victory_ , she thought. The harsh satisfaction was a denial of her circumstance, no more. It changed nothing. She had failed.

Her eyes filled with frustrated tears. She grit her teeth, feeling like a foolish child, and looked up at Jaime Lannister’s flushed, handsome features.

He blinked down at her, face inscrutable, as she wrestled the tears from her eyes.

Ser Jaime rolled abruptly free, narrowly avoiding the blade still buried against his back. Her skin felt strange without the edge of his sword; its edge had anchored her on the cusp of loss, and now she must face consequence. She clambered to her feet, unsteady without _swing_ and _scrape_ and _shift_ , the burn of her muscles and the fire in her belly.

Ser Jaime held himself erect, blade to one side as if she might charge him.

“Ser, I– ”

She did not know what she intended to say. Offer thanks for the fight perhaps, for she would hold close the memory for years to come. Or maybe she meant to apologize. Her entire being felt such a mess, she was sure she could bear his presence no longer.

“Jaime.” He sliced through her blank courtesies, sweeping off his helm. His hair fell golden and glistening, catching the color nestled in his eyes. Her heart panged as he looked resolutely away. “My name is Jaime.”

“Jaime,” she rasped, feeling _wrongness_ in the way her tongue curled around his name.

His eyes cut to her so suddenly Brienne nearly faltered. “Brienne,” he said, and she did not understand the way her body resonated with the sound. “My lady,” he amended, inclining his head in the facsimile of politeness. “It seems you are a lioness after all.”

He stepped back as his brother approached. Brienne shuffled her boots, wincing as her armor clamored for attention.

“Your bride is sufficiently cowed, brother,” Jaime smiled carelessly. The expression took an odd cast as Brienne scowled and he met her eye.

“My thanks,” the Imp replied, sounding rather dour. He eyed Brienne’s blade speculatively; it promptly clattered to the floor.

The Maid of Tarth would break no oath.

“My lord,” she muttered, swiping sticky hair from her cheek. She almost bowed, started to curtsy, and abandoned both, blushing, as her plate echoed jarringly. “With your leave?”

She spoke to the dwarf, but her eyes flickered to his brother. Her blood sang strangely, and she quickly averted her gaze. It was more fear than misery that propelled her when the halfman nodded curtly. Brienne stalked from the hall, shedding gauntlet and greaves as if she might somehow dislodge the sting of grief, abandoning it in the hall that was no longer her own.

 

* * *

 

The dawn of her wedding rose cool and white, as though the very sunlight had bled its golden hue to lend her color. Septa Roelle dressed her perfunctorily, pressing her lips at the flurry of ladies who tucked and smoothed and giggled in mockery or approval.

When her father entered, silently smoothing the brittle, errant fringe from her forehead, Brienne’s face did not betray her. The blue velvet maiden’s cloak he set about her shoulders surpassed the weight of any armor. It would afford her little protection for her troubles.

“You are as lovely as I have ever seen you,” her father said softly, tucking her arm through his. She was taller by half a hand, but she felt much younger than her six and ten years.

“That is true enough,” her septa agreed. “Do not keep the Lannisters waiting.”

They adjourned to Evenfall’s modest sept, arriving amidst the bustle of final preparations.

“He will be a good husband,” soothed Lord Selwyn stoutly.

Brienne could not disagree. Though the Imp would likely father more bastards than trueborn heirs, he had treated her well since arriving on Tarth. Her unhappiness would be entirely of her own making.

Septa Roelle appeared, inducing her father to speed the servants, so he clasped her hand and promised a swift return. Brienne abused the blue silk of her gown with unsteady fingers, wishing she could clutch it in full without facing the pinched disapproval of her septa.

A murmur of voices drifted beneath the clatter of candelabras, and Brienne fell prey her instincts, skirting around to survey the yard. Her heart turned to iron, landing sharply in her belly, when she found the dwarf in conversation with his brother. Her betrothed had a face as unreadable as stone, and Brienne shivered as she saw his father in his expression.

Ser Jaime Lannister fastened a crimson cloak about his brother’s shoulders. It trailed the sand by a good pace, but the sight would be no less strange once her shoulders bore his sigil. The fabric would barely brush the curve of her ankle.

The knight made an idle remark as he smoothed a crease. Though Brienne eased closer she could not hear the Imp’s terse response. She saw his features change, though, taken by a puckish light; the curve of his mouth was not kind.

“ _Tyrion,_ ” Jaime reprimanded sharply.

Brienne froze where she stood. Her own name hit her then, a soft smack across her cheek, but she could not hear the words that cushioned the blow. She stood, heart steadily building tempo, as the brothers fell to fervent undertones. Her feet dithered, torn between moving closer and returning to the front of the sept.

A hand slid along the small of her back, and Brienne startled. The brothers, alerted to her presence, turned swiftly as one, transfixing her with one black eye and three green.

“The septon is waiting,” her father announced to anyone who cared to listen, firming his grip on his daughter’s waist to tow her toward the sun-baked sept.

“I hope he has shored his patience,” said her betrothed. “He must yet wait longer.”

Brienne turned back to see a gold lion catch the pale sun as the crimson cloak rippled to the ground. Her father’s hand grew hard on her hip. Desperation warred with Brienne’s relief, threatening to overcome her.

“Forgive me, my lady,” the dwarf bowed slightly, in mockery or regret she could not say. “I cannot wed you.”

“You _must_ ,” she insisted. She glanced between the brothers as her fingers slipped and fell from her father’s arm.

_I swore. I failed._ She could not debase herself, but the words hung in the air, plain all the same. _No one else will have me._

“You signed a contract.” Mountains and seas could not sway Lord Selwyn of Tarth. “My daughter will not be dishonored.”

Jaime stooped, roughly gathering folds of Lannister colors. The dwarf sidestepped him as his brother shoved the cloak towards him, and the knight’s handsome features tautened.

Tyrion Lannister stood his full height, short and obdurate yet somehow impish. “I cannot in good conscience be your husband,” he announced, the barest hint of wryness at his lips. “You swore to have none save the man who bested you.”

“Your lord father– “ Brienne began, but her tongue refused subjugation, as did her thoughts. She frowned as words like _gods_ and _champion_ danced around her ears.

“Will accept a substitute.” The dwarf looked contemplative, ignoring her furrowed brow, as he amended, “Unhappily.”

“Tyrion.” Brienne could not understand why Jaime’s words escaped him in a rush. “You are mad if you think– “

“Denials do no one good, Jaime.” His brother raised a brow. “The cloak was fitted for you.” He grinned like a squire winning his first fight. “And I am happier with wine than a wife.”

“Am I thatch once more?” Brienne jerked her skirt, angry and confused. They could not mean what her fancies mistook for candor. “Bartered at will?”

“And what is _your_ will, my lady?”

His bluntness unguarded her. She shifted, pressing back into the familiar bulwark of her father. Tenacity took her, as it had when she was a child, and Brienne stepped forward, eying the dwarf levelly.

“My desires do not concern you.”

“ _Ah_.” Tyrion pantomimed a wound to the heart, but he smiled up at his brother. “I suspect I know whom they concern.”

Brienne blushed, staring stonily between them as she reached a color that blended Tarth’s rose with Lannister crimson.

Jaime did not speak. He examined her as one planning a war, assessing the objective beside a man he did not know for ally or enemy 

“Come.” Tyrion gestured impatiently. “Let us not allow father and stubbornness to destroy your future happiness.”

All was silent. Behind them, she could hear the muted revelry of the wedding guests. Servants scurried like mice, the sound of their feet lost in the bustle of the warming morning.

“Brienne.” Her name enticed her softly, and her gaze found Jaime’s by no will of her own. “Years I have refused to wed.”

The thread in her heart pulled taut, trailing thin strands of the tenderest of aches. Brienne fortified herself against the tremors that would rend her.

Jaime paused, and for a moment his eyes were unguarded, unsure. “My father might agree.”

“ _Ser_.”

Brienne moved as a marionette as her father pulled her closer. So much of her was poured into the golden intent of green-flashing eyes that her body was left listless, buffeted by wind and sea.

“My daughter is not a subject of your whimsy, nor a pawn in your games.” She felt his head shift at her back, staring between the brothers. Wondering how to protect her, how to abandon Tywin Lannister to his jagged cliffs and dying deserts without razing Tarth around them.

“This is no game.” Disquiet spun ragged threads through Jaime’s avowal.

Her heart lurched, echoing his curt support, and boles of blue, and strands of sweaty, golden straw.

A smile touched his mouth, but the face beneath his beaten gold hesitated. “You may fight me again if you wish.”

“I would.” _Accept you. Fight you._ Her voice sounded as disbelieving as her thoughts. “I swore an oath. You triumphed.”

Jaime nodded, seemingly unaware that his lips had parted to climb the smooth cliff of his cheek. “You’ll have a blade,” he promised, glancing wryly down at Tyrion. “So you can wage your own wars.”

Her body felt suddenly unbound, drifting off across a field of grass to a scuffed, packed, penned in yard that smelt of sweat and success.

When she faced Tywin Lannister she stood tall. His eyes were like grey flint, grass dying amidst the stone, but she thought she saw them flash gold when he nodded curtly and strode into the holy sept.

“You will foster your heir with me, won’t you?” Tyrion called half the night later, when her dress was puddled on the floor and her blush flamed her entire body. She clung to his amusement, a shield against the bawdy suggestions of men she had known all her life, and the jeers of Lannister soldiers. “A child needs sharpened wits as well as sharpened steel, you understand.”

She did not know who shoved her into the room, only that she landed softly against skin and slopes and plains. She turned, caught the feline glow in Jaime’s eyes as every lingering thread of doubt unraveled like a tapestry. The door thudded closed like a shield cast aside, and they were neither straw nor gold nor steel, only flesh.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback, please!


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